finally 30 years after amory lovins introduced the idea of the negawatt and the non-use based energy resource, we have the oppty to execute that vision.

for years we only had one model: the ESCO…which had limited adoption. last year we saw the roll-out of one of the first next gen models: PACE. this year we see continued innovation with several new models including the eePPA.

this FEB/MAR/APRIL you could feel the optimism in the air. wall street activity & the dow “said” it was all looking good.

the on-the-street reality is somewhat different: stubborn un-employment, continued mixed picture in housing, caution in consumer spending, continued productivity + slack in manufactiuring capacity due to 2005-7 ramp ups…and outside of the “money center banks”, we have banking instability & credit tightness. state revenue gaps are next issue.

in pulsing CEOs, i’ve seen a few threads:

– in manufacturing and in construction, capacity slack and desire to preserve key employee skills is driving below cost bidding.

– gov’t related work is still a dominate source of work

– deep concerns about access to credit in “normal projects”…banks are just now re-entering…prompting companies to think through how “they bring their own financing to projects…”

– cash mgmt still upper most on their minds

several huge questions:

– where & what do you invest in with “confidence”?

– where will job growth come from? what societal implications are there from the systematic un-employment?

– implications of a “slow” credit economy, especially for the small biz sector and construction/infrastructure projects?

equilibrium capital group just released the first of two documents on energy efficiency.

released today as part of our Sustainability Investment Reports” is “Energy Efficiency, Turning Negawatts into Marketable Securities.”

the 2nd paper co-written with a leading think tank, due end of may, will be address the public policy of ee; it looks at state by state level analysis of best practices in regulations, legislation & policy to scale energy efficiency based power resources.

Who said this on September 10, 2009 ‘We should see scientific and technological innovation as an important pillar and make greater effort to develop new industries of strategic importance. Science and technology is a powerful engine of economic growth . . . We will make [our] country [one] of innovation. . . We will accelerate the development of a low-carbon economy and green economy so as to gain an advantageous position in the international industrial competition.’

lets not get confused between china’s position on “climate change & carbon” at COP 15 with what they are doing in their economy.

•While the European Union is aiming to produce 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, and the U.S. Congress considers adopting a 20 percent renewable electricity standard by the same year, China produced fully 16 percent of its electricity from hydropower and wind power alone by the end of 2009—numbers that will increase over the next decade. Nonfossil fuel sources are expected to account for as much as 30 percent of China’s overall power supply by 2020. The country expects to meet a big portion of this new market by building seven wind megabases of at least 10 GW each strategically sited across the country. Supported by a wind energy feed-in tariff of 7-9 cents per kwh, and is considering a similar program for solar energy.

•City and provincial governments are creating low-carbon development zones to catalyze clean-energy technology manufacturing. In these regions, clean-energy industries are the backbone of economic development, creating jobs through innovation, manufacturing, and assembly activities. [ Baoding in Hebei province, Tianjin municipality, Wuhan city in Hubei province, The ‘solar belt’ of cities found throughout Jiangsu province. ] The hope is that this type of cluster-based approach to economic development can lead to higher rates of innovation and entrepreneurship and better wages.

•China already produces a third of the world’s solar panels. It is currently the world’s leading supplier of solar PV panels and solar hot water heaters, and until recently more than 90 percent of Chinese-made solar PV panels were shipped overseas for export markets.

•China Investment Corp. (CIC), China’s sovereign wealth fund is aggressively investing in clean energy: In November 2009, it announced investments of $400 million in China Longyuan Power, China’s largest wind energy generator, and $700 million in GCL-Poly, a diversified energy company specializing in cogeneration, wind, and polysilicon production. In the same month CIC also invested $1.6 billion in AES, a U.S.-headquartered global utility with one of the largest foreign operations in China, including investments in hydro and wind power projects.

•National energy efficiency plan: 20% decrease in energy intensity from 2005 to 2010. “One major national energy conservation program that sets energy efficiency standards for the top 1,000 energy consuming enterprises in China, achieved its stated goal of reducing energy use by 100 million tons of coal equivalent two years ahead of its 2010 target date. In the process of fulfilling this target, some $7.3 billion in energy efficiency technologies & measures was invested in 2007, and another $13.2 billion was invested in 2008.”

Finally, approximately $100 billion of the $586 billion economic stimulus package China implemented in 2008 is dedicated to building transmission lines and railways. China already leads the world in ultrahigh-voltage grid transmission technology—its line between Shanxi and Hubei boasts the highest capacity in the world and is able to transmit 1,000 kilovolts over 400 miles. China is also embarking on the largest railway expansion in history and plans to spend almost $300 billion expanding its railway network from 48,000 miles today to 75,000 miles in 2020. Of this, 8,000 miles will be comprised of high-speed, long-distance rail. China is poised to have the world’s largest network for intracity urban rail transit. Eleven cities currently have urban rail routes totaling 520 miles. By 2015 approximately 1,300 miles of railway lines will be laid and operational in 19 cities.